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THE COLOR FACTORY

Name: THE COLOR FACTORY
Author: Eric Telchin
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0556-7

by Eric Telchin ; illustrated by Diego Funck ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 19, 2018

Visually cheap, narratively forced.

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Operators at a color factory lose control and ask readers for help.

A panda, a zebra, and a bespectacled penguin—the same characters who managed The Black and White Factory (2016)—invite readers into the Color Factory for a grand-opening tour. This manufacturing plant uses a fancy replicating machine to calculate a color’s exact ingredients. The color-creation process is never depicted; instead, one page displays the upcoming color’s ingredients—Fire Engine Red and Canary Yellow make Factory-Approved Orange, for instance—while the following page reveals objects of that color (in this case, basketballs, traffic cones, and safety vests). The text bristles with rigid language, such as “strict formulas,” and frequent repetition of the terms “Factory-Approved” and “perfect”; when things inevitably go awry, the drama feels as forced as these rules do. It’s also unclear quite how things go awry. After readers are asked to pull blue and pink separately onto a lollipop, the lollipop suddenly has brown-gray stripes, and other objects are somehow colored in warm grays: “We do not approve!” yells the zebra as sirens wail. Actions requested of readers—tapping, rubbing, or inhaling colors—are disconnected from the displayed results. A chaos of circles, swirls, diagonals, and jagged lines along with too many similarly saturated colors create busy pages lacking focus. Hervé Tullet’s Mix It Up (2014) treats similar themes brilliantly and without blaming readers in the process.

Visually cheap, narratively forced. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 19, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4998-0556-7

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Little Bee Books

Review Posted Online: April 17, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BLACK AND WHITE FACTORY
by Eric Telchin ; illustrated by Diego Funck

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THE CRAYONS GO BACK TO SCHOOL

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2023

Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings.

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The Crayons head back to class in this latest series entry.

Daywalt’s expository text lays out the basics as various Crayons wave goodbye to the beach, choose a first-day outfit, greet old friends, and make new ones. As in previous outings, the perennially droll illustrations and hand-lettered Crayon-speak drive the humor. The ever wrapperless Peach, opining, “What am I going to wear?” surveys three options: top hat and tails, a chef’s toque and apron, and a Santa suit. New friends Chunky Toddler Crayon (who’s missing a bite-sized bit of their blue point) and Husky Toddler Crayon speculate excitedly on their common last name: “I wonder if we’re related!” White Crayon, all but disappearing against the page’s copious white space, sits cross-legged reading a copy of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. And Yellow and Orange, notable for their previous existential argument about the color of the sun, find agreement in science class: Jupiter, clearly, is yellow AND orange. Everybody’s excited about art class—“Even if they make a mess. Actually…ESPECIALLY if they make a mess!” Here, a spread of crayoned doodles of butterflies, hearts, and stars is followed by one with fulsome scribbles. Fans of previous outings will spot cameos from Glow in the Dark and yellow-caped Esteban (the Crayon formerly known as Pea Green). (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings. (Picture book. 4-6)

Pub Date: May 16, 2023

ISBN: 9780593621110

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DAY THE CRAYONS MADE FRIENDS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE FREDDIE TWO PANTS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

- SEEN & HEARD
Daywalt, Jeffers Collaborate on New ‘Crayons’ Book

- SEEN & HEARD
Daywalt, Jeffers Collaborate on New ‘Crayons’ Book

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)